


See them blink and know that they have heartbeats just like you and me

by chaWOOPa



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Minor Davenport/Merle Highchurch, Trans Taako (The Adventure Zone), davenport loves his crew, feeblemind!taako
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-08
Updated: 2018-03-08
Packaged: 2019-03-28 11:40:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,708
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13903257
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chaWOOPa/pseuds/chaWOOPa
Summary: It’s hard for him to spend time with Taako in this state. He is the best at reading his moods and knowing what he wants, but that is because he knows firsthand what it is like to not be able to communicate. He knows that frustration and that mindlessness and that terror; he has lived that before. Watching Taako , bright, brilliant, enigmatic Taako who is usually sharp as a whip live like that is almost too much and has Davenport retreating to the sea much more than normal.He hasn’t slept a full night since Taako was hit with Feeblemind.





	See them blink and know that they have heartbeats just like you and me

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Voidfish](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Voidfish/gifts).



> DISCLAIMER AND ALSO FUN FACT: this is based off of Voidfish (the one i am gifting the fic to)'s feeblemind!taako and like, originally i came up with the concept of this while helping them brainstorm the ways Davenport would react to taako being in this state. 
> 
> Voidfish (aka Albee) is a good friend of mine at this point, and i appreciate them so, so much, and i am so proud and happy to be able to call them friend. Check out their writing, it is A+, amazing. <3

Davenport hasn’t volunteered to watch Taako at any point. Lup has called and all but begged him a few times, or he has come to family dinners and been the only one able to understand what Taako needed, or he has gotten wind from someone else that Taako was having a bad day and he needed someone to help get him back into the swing of things and someone was hoping he might stop by, but he has never outright volunteered.

 

It isn’t that he doesn’t love his family, or he isn’t concerned or doesn’t want to help; it’s just hard.

 

It’s hard for him to spend time with Taako in this state. He is the best at reading his moods and knowing what he wants, but that is because he knows firsthand what it is like to not be able to communicate. He knows that frustration and that mindlessness and that terror; he has lived that before. Watching _Taako_ , bright, brilliant, enigmatic Taako who is usually sharp as a whip live like that is almost too much and has Davenport retreating to the sea much more than normal.

 

He hasn’t slept a full night since Taako was hit with Feeblemind.

 

Right now, though, Taako is upset and frustrated and, above everything, tired, and no one can figure out what is wrong or how to fix it, so Davenport is facing down a rift on the deck of his ship and is making a choice. He can see Taako through the rift and he can read those things from his place firmly on the outside of his living room and he knows his choice is already made, but he hesitates anyway. He allows himself two pauses; two deep breaths to compose himself before he steps through the rift into the warm light and solid ground of Taako’s living room.

 

Taako doesn’t even look at him when Davenport enters the room, staying fully in his spot pressed firmly against the couch both as a defense mechanism and as a way to keep himself upright. The bags under his eyes are bigger than he has ever let anyone see and he won’t look anyone in the eyes ( _If he were really here, were fully our Taako, He would have a Glamour covering up for the dark circles and the red eyes; the splotches of color and paleness over his face, the way the corner of his lips refuses to stay still at this point in his exhaustion and twitches uncontrollably_ , Davenport thinks). He wants to turn tail and leave right then and there. To not come back until Taako is back to making scathing, pointed remarks because he is too tired to temper his thoughts with kindness, until he is back to tell them exactly why he isn’t sleeping instead of Davenport having to guess carefully, until this whole ordeal is over and done with. He won’t. He can’t.

 

He will stay because his family needs him.

 

“You wanna tell me why you aren’t sleeping?” Davenport taps Taako’s forehead gently with his pointer finger, forcing him to look at him.

 

This is far from the first time he has been around Taako in this state, but he still has to repress the urge to shudder at the vacant look in his eyes. Taako thinks for a second, then taps his temple and shakes his head. Davenport frowns and shakes his own head back. “That doesn’t tell me anything, Taako.” He knows that the words he speaks tell Taako nothing, that everything Taako knows is told through the body language he projects, but it makes him feel better to say it anyway.

 

Taako sighs and looks around, perking up a little when his eyes land on Barry’s scythe. He quickly points to the scythe, then his own throat, then taps his temple again. Davenport tilts his head to the side, considering for a second. “So,” he starts before Taako can point again. “Danger?” he asks, eyeing the scythe for a second before turning back to Taako.

 

Taako nods and Davenport doesn’t need him to point at himself again to know what is keeping him from sleeping.

 

He is having Nightmares.

 

Davenport takes Taako’s hands in his own and says gently, “Do you wanna come look at the stars with me?”

 

Taako hesitates for a moment, looking over at Lup before allowing Davenport to pull him to his feet and lead him over past her and Barry and out into the backyard. He makes Taako stop just before they reach the middle of the yard and grins up at the confused elf.

 

There are a lot of bad things happening and this is a hard time for everyone, especially for Davenport, but the wonder and excitement in Taako’s eyes and the way it make Taako’s whole being light up with happiness when _anyone_ does magic makes it at least a little bit better.

 

As soon as they have a blanket big enough for Taako to lay on and the colors are to his taste, Davenport makes him lay down with his head in his lap.

 

It is a beautiful night, not a cloud in the sky. Davenport had meant to spend it doing this very thing with Merle. He realizes idly that his ship isn’t even close enough to shore to have gotten home in time to do this with Merle anyway.

 

Taako taps his face expectantly and then points at the stars, something glinting in his eyes that Davenport recognizes as the reason he picked him and his sister for the Starblaster crew over one hundred and fifty years ago. Taako looks at the stars with such unbridled love and curiosity and _passion_ that Davenport almost can’t speak around the lump it brings to his throat when he remembers that everything he could say are things Taako should already know.

 

Davenport talks himself through navigating via star to calm down.

 

He traces patterns in the stars with Taako’s hand, guides him to points of light that lead to known and unknown universes. He tells him the stories behind men and objects and animals until he runs out of things to talk about and then he talks some more.

 

He lets Taako’s hand rest gently on his own stomach as his breathing evens out into something deep and peaceful, and Davenport continues to talk. He moves from fiction to fact, from mythology to science as he tells Taako about the energy and matter and chemicals that make up the little pinpricks of light that shine down onto the world below.

 

“Y-you know all this, of course,” he tells Taako gently as a tear he didn’t know had escaped his eyes drips onto Taako’s forehead and Davenport wipes it off gently with his thumb. “Y-you were the one who m-made me remember everything I kn-knew about the stars, after-r all. Did you know, though, that, that after I finally remembered everything, the fact that stuck out the most, was that even t-t-though we see the light of the stars-” Taako starts to gently whimper and Davenport pauses to gently rub his temples and shush him. He doesn’t take too long to calm.

 

When he is fully asleep again, Davenport continues “B-because of how far away they are, compared to how slow the speed of light is, the light we s-see is only an echo.”

 

There is silence as Davenport thinks about what he said and runs his hands through Taako’s long, loose hair. There was a night just like this one, late into the century but before Lup and Barry were liches, where they had both already died and left Taako alone to find the Light with the rest of the crew, and Davenport had found him lying under the stars on the deck of the Starblaster one night.

 

He had joined him, that night, and they had ended up in a position not to different from this one, With Taako’s head in Davenport’s lap, and Davenport running his hands through Taako’s hair while they looked at the unfamiliar stars together.

 

 _“Those are just echoes, you know,”_ Taako had said to him then, and Davenport had scoffed.

 

 _“Maybe scientifically speaking,”_ He had responded, _“but right here, right now, they are just as alive and real as we are.”_

 

Under Davenport’s hands in this moment, Taako begins to whimper again and Davenport starts to soothe him. His voice is barely more than a whisper and he dares not raise it for fear of dislodging the lump keeping his sobs from coming pouring out as he shushes Taako until he is still and quiet again. There is some twisted humor in the way the positions are twisted now, as they lay in the same position as all those years ago with Davenport telling Taako about the echoes of long dead stars while Taako cannot even comprehend what he is saying.

 

Davenport shakes his head after a long stretch of silent tears and leans down to rest his forehead against Taako’s. “N-no,” he tries to tell himself quietly into Taako’s soft golden hair. “R-right here, right now, Those stars are as alive and r-real as we are.”

 

He does not remember falling asleep like that, but when he wakes up the next morning Taako is carrying him into the house and he can feel his spine gently aching as though he hadn't moved from his hunched position for a long while. “Taako?” he asks blearily.

 

“Got that right, Cap,” Taako’s voice ( _Davenport knew he had missed Taako’s voice but the full gravity of how much he had missed it didn’t truly hit until that exact moment when he heard it again_ ) sounded from slightly above him, “here, alive, and _back baby_ thanks to one hell of a fucking wisdom save.”

 

Taako sets Davenport gently on the couch and smiles even more gently at him before he turns to go. “You know,” he whispers, not meeting Davenport’s eyes, “The stars are just as much echoes as we are.”

 

Davenport doesn’t cry. He also doesn’t hug Taako until he shouts for Lup to come peel him off either, which for sure doesn’t end in a group hug with everyone home.

 

Most importantly, though, Taako doesn’t hug him back.

**Author's Note:**

> now for the additional part where i ramble about the fic: i have always loved the night sky and honestly ust the sky in general, and like, I can't stop thinking that Davenport used to be the same way. He loved the sky and the stars and he wanted to live there, he wanted to explore and to find and to discover and to see them up close. 
> 
> this is the intersection of me projecting that desire on Davenport and me helping Davenport work through even just a little bit of what s&s and Lucretia put him through. 
> 
> I hope you enjoyed. <3


End file.
